


the morning after

by slhytherin



Category: Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Early Mornings, F/M, I repeat, No Sex, Sorry Not Sorry, There is no sex, really misleading, this is so cheesy, we dont talk about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:13:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7368592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slhytherin/pseuds/slhytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>emma comes home too late; julian waits up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the morning after

**Author's Note:**

> comments/criticism/grammar lessons = always appreciated! I'm awful at verb tenses.

The rising sun peered curiously into the lowest panel of her window at the clock that reads five am. Silky white sheets are peeled by calloused hands. Emma Carstairs blinked through the last remnants of sleep with umber eyes, her honey hair pulled back in a loose braid. With the little amount of rest she received, rising this early felt like a cruel punishment for the previous night with Julian. _Last night..._ Emma glanced towards the empty space on the bed's left side, where Julian Blackthorn should have been. In typical Julian fashion, he most likely left before sunrise, meaning he slept even less because he was too cautious to be caught staying in her room. The innocent sleepovers the two had begun having as children could no longer be overlooked by the Clave; they were seventeen. Their top priority was to keep what was left of the Blackthorn siblings together so that the two could protect and raise them -- a full night's rest had become a risk the _parabatai_ could no longer afford to take. It didn't matter how poorly they slept without each other.

-

Having come home at an ungodly hour due to a prolonged (but exhilarating) hunt the night before, Emma discovered Julian at the kitchen counter with a steaming cup of coffee in his paint-stained hands. He didn't always wait up for her, but she didn't usually come home this late. His sunken eyes had met hers and the adrenaline had dissipated from her body in an instant. She hated the the smothering feeling of his exhaustion. If it hurt enough to witness it, it probably hurt Julian more to endure it. And he had to experience and shoulder that burden every day since the attack on the Los Angeles Institute. 

"Come on," she murmured, silently padding over to take the mug from his twitching hands. Emma stayed just long enough to watch his feet drag themselves into her room, and then she had begun her post-hunt routine. By the time she stripped and cleaned her gear, disinfected her weapons of ichor, showered and double-checked every lock in the building, Emma had reentered her room to find Julian on his back, so deeply asleep that the only visible sign of life was the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

If Julian took care of everything and everyone, then Emma had to take care of Julian. She knew she didn't do enough. She made towards the right side of the bed and tucked herself beneath the covers silently. Julian's hand had reached out aimlessly in the dark for her, and Emma had frozen, her breath hitching in her throat. His fingertips stopped just short of her lips, and Emma rolled her eyes at Julian's unwavering sense of responsibility, even in sleep. She knew his reasoning, but it hurt all the same. If something ever happened that would cause the younger Blackthorns to burst into Emma's room, they might not be as dismissive of the pair's sleepovers if Julian's hand had found itself caressing her face. 

-

Emma wiped her eyes and pushed the covers back, coming back to the present. She needed to find Julian, if only to reassure herself. She paced quietly down the hallway, clad in thin cotton shorts and a white tank top, her eyes darting around the building. Emma had not allowed herself one completely peaceful moment since the attack. The safe haven she once held so dear lost most of its magic when she'd had to witness Blackthorn blood splatter across its tiled floor. Nothing could erase the life debt she felt she owed to the family - _her_ family - and it never sat well to be unknowledgeable of Julian's whereabouts. To her it was inconsequential if she went out and took extra assignments on his behalf so that he could stay home with the kids. They didn't need her like they needed him, like _she_ needed him. 

Emma passed through the kitchen and noticed the coffee machine had been in use. The curtains shielding the room from the glare of the morning sun were tucked back, exposing the glass backdoor. She rifled through Julian's note drawer in the kitchen, full of pre-made excuses for his or Emma's absences. She flipped past 'out for groceries!', 'meeting Malcolm', 'picking up Diana - be ready for lessons', and 'dinner in the fridge :)' until she found 'out, be back for breakfast - E+J', and pasted it to the fridge with a small magnet. It is a common routine of theirs to begin the weekend in some sort of solitude. Emma might go for a run and Julian would often take a cup of coffee in a thermos and sit outside. She locked the door behind her and traversed down the winding pathway from the Institute to the sand.

A strong emotion coursed through their bond. It was familiar; anger, perhaps. Her feet sank into the powdery Malibu sand, and into her vantage comes a lanky boy in pajamas two lifeguard towers south, away from the coves. She took the distance as an opportunity for a morning run, and as she neared the figure focused into view — Julian holding a maroon thermos between thin fingers. Only a few feet away now, she observes his delicate hands maintaining a vise grip on the cup. They are stained with jasmine and daffodil-yellow paint. Emma wonders if he might have been painting the sun, the sand, or something else entirely. He stopped showing her a majority of his work a long time ago. 

She eased herself down into the sand beside him. “Hi,” she breathed, her face flushed from her sprint over.

He won't look at her, mouth pressed into a thin line. In a painstakingly slow motion, he lifted the thermos to his lips. 

"Fun night?" His voice was condescending, but Emma heard the bitterness layered beneath it.

"You would have been the first to know if something went wrong."

Julian's voice stayed flat, but Emma knew his tone well enough that if he wasn't tired he would be yelling. 

"Would I? And if it went so wrong that you weren't able to reach me? I didn't even know where you were -"

"Julian, look at me." 

He turned just enough to view her comfortably. It's not something that the ever-accommodating, ever-polite Julian would do, but things have changed. _He's_ changed, whether Emma wanted to come to terms with it or not. The icy gaze sent a chill through her bones, but his eyes were still haunted. Emma wanted more than anything to give back the life that Sebastian Morgenstern took away from him, but it could never be like that again.

"I'm not going anywhere, so you can stop waiting up for me. You could really use the rest," she cracked a small smile, "I mean, you look like you've been run over." 

Julian's face was expressionless. Emma tried again.

"I'm sorry, okay? I figured you'd be so busy micromanaging everyone else that you wouldn't have room to worry about me -" 

The thermos is shaking in his hand, but this time it isn't from the caffeine. 

"Of course I worry about you! You're my _parabatai_ , I need you, I can't do _any of this_ without you! What the hell were you thinking last night? I would rather -" Julian stopped abruptly. Emma didn't push him but watched intently as he exhaled, forcing the tension out from his shoulders, his hands. The muscle in his jaw clenched. 

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when they reopen, his expression and voice were level again. "Call me, text me, leave a note for me, tell one of the kids where you're going, I don't care. Just... _please_ ," and it's the desperate, hollow sound of his voice that made Emma's heart tighten, "don't make me go through that again."

Emma scooted closer to him, tucking herself into his chest. His arm draped easily over her side. She couldn't meet his eye any longer. If he saw her face he would know that Emma cared about him far more than she would ever admit out loud. He would know how much she wished she could be more than just parabatai, because Julian knew her better than she knew herself. She could love him as much as she does and still never know what or how he feels, but Julian _always_ knew. Always. 

She breathed him in and he smelled like cloves, soap, and salt, and it hits her that _this_ is home to her. She doesn't remember when the Institute stopped being home and Julian did but she knows she could never face him while she felt like this, like everything about him _hurt_.

Emma was so sure her voice would catch in her throat that she instead spoke directly to his skin, hoping her sincerity would seep into his veins. Her finger traced the letters across his forearm. I-M-S-O-R-R-Y.

They didn't leave until the sun was high, until Julian's stomach growling reminded them that they owed the kids breakfast. Emma didn't want to think about how long Julian let her lean on him without complaint, and she couldn't - wouldn't - think about how rarely Julian voiced his own needs.

"We should go," she bit out, and maneuvered herself out from Julian's grasp. 

The two stood and walked side-by-side back to the Institute, to the kids, to the life they both sometimes ached to escape. 

"If we were just mundanes, and you were just my best friend," Julian began, turning to look at her, "what do you think you would have wanted to do with your life?" 

So instead of dwelling on who they have become and who they have to be for the sake of others, Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn talked about the lives that they could never have as if they _could_ have it, together.


End file.
